Monday, 30 January 2012

My life as a Bond girl

You will all remember that seminal moment (in "Dr.Oh No Whatever Happened to Ursula Andress!!") when I zimmered out of the sea in my curly plastic bathing hat with matching flowery bathing costume, and offered James Bond a nice hot cup of tea from my thermos flask. But the moment I am really thinking about is the Moonraker one. Its when James and whatever the current girl's name was (Largechestia?) were skimming along the top of the earth's atmosphere, occasionally touching it and sort of sizzling the edges of their plane.

I identify with that quite a lot as I skim along the surface of Aspergers... and every time I touch it one of the connections in my head that makes sense of things flickers and uncouples.

It makes me realise how amazing the human brain is and what it does for us all the time. And, if it doesn't work, then how helpless we are.

My last big hit on the Asperger's atmosphere was when we were out with a friend from Expatworld who visits us most years. And we have known her for getting on for thirty years now. We had driven to the Arun river walk, and she and I had got out of the car. Then i was standing outside the car with Col getting his walking shoes out of the boot and there was a strange woman standing in front of me.

It wasn't till she spoke that I realised it was Julia, who had just got out of the car with me. I had no sense of missing her, no sense of having been with Julia, no recognition at all until she spoke and the thing clicked back - and James Bond drove the plane above the atmosphere again.

The brain is truly amazing. I believe that Darwin was honest about the problem it posed for the theory of Evolution. And of course we know even more about its complexity and capacity now, so I think if he was still with us he would have gone back to the drawing board a long time ago.

And its when it doesn't do what it should that you begin to get a glimpse of just how much it does do.

It is also a sad insight into the frozen world of deep autism, where nothing connects and nothing makes sense.

We are just talking to Bea on Skype - and I am hoping for a quiet day and a quiet week, to recharge my batteries for the weekend when we have visitors.